August!

Well hello everyone!

What an amazing week this has been! It started out on exchanges with the Assistants. Elder Whiteley joined me in our area, and we had a great day. We taught a former investigator named Angel. He seems to have trouble understanding the concepts of the gospel, but we set up a return appointment with him (which we went to later that week; not much had changed). That day we also tracted into a really nice girl named Christina! We taught her the first lesson and it went really well. We weren't able to set up another appointment with her, but we'll be trying back this coming week! We met an interesting man named Al who we found in our former investigator files. We had a lesson with him, and he explained all about how he keeps the Law of Moses to a T. It was interesting.

On Wednesday Elder Rosequist interviewed a young lady named Gabby for baptism in one of the areas in our Zone. At the same time he was doing that, Ashleigh passed her own baptismal interview!! Woohoo! So she will be baptized on Saturday, August 16th! That night we were walking around an apartment complex, and talked to a young lady on her porch. We taught her the first lesson. I think we teach that lesson more than anything... It went well, but we couldn't get a return appointment. Her name is Kathrine.

We've been teaching our recent converts a lot more recently. We taught Taylor, Cali, and Shay. They're all learning the new member lessons, and it's going great.We unfortunately weren't able to get appointments this week with any of the less-active members we usually teach. I hope we can contact them this week!

We taught a couple of lessons this week to Elisa, a friend of a member of the ward. She is strong in her faith as an Evangelical Christian, and is trying very hard to understand the doctrine of the Church. She has studied a LOT. She's read the Book of Mormon, True to the Faith, and is beginning to read Jesus the Christ by Elder Talmage. The lessons went well, and ultimately resulted in the invitation for her to continue her investigation and to make sincere prayer an important part of her search for truth.

There are a few other people we taught, but I'll save those for another day when I have some more progress to share!

I also met a sister who served in the same area as dad in Japan at the same time! That was super cool. She said, "Oh, I remember. Rogers Choro sang very well."

Rogers Choro and Sainsbury Shimai

I've been practicing recently with Elder Mazankowski for a special musical number (or as Elder Rosequist always says, "specical musical number") that we'll be singing at the Sister's Conference on Saturday. We're singing "Oh Lord, My Redeemer." It's starting to come together. It's written as a solo, so we've had to go in a write a harmony for it. For some reason I was having trouble just winging a harmony, so we took the time to write it in the music. Elder O'Rullian is a musical prodigy, and he's playing the piano for us. I hope it goes well! Maybe I'll get Elder Rosequist to record it so I can send it to you!

The work is hastening! Be involved! Don't forget to choose the right. And if you do, RAD-B (repent and do better)! I love you all! Continue in excellence!

Sincerely,
Elder Rogers